


home (overthrown)

by annavale23



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Day Four: prompt 'redemption', F/M, Fall Maiko Week 2020, Mai (Avatar)-Centric, Post-Episode: s03e14-15 The Boiling Rock, buckle up people this gets deep, essentially: zuko chases off after his redemption, heads up there's some swearing, introspective maybe, mai's left with the consequences of what it does to her feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27256411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annavale23/pseuds/annavale23
Summary: [And she doesn’t understand. He’d gotten everything he wanted. His redemption. His place at his father’s side. Her, and there’s nothing she can do to wrap her mind around that.He’d gotten everything he wanted, but somehow it wasn’t enough.Somehow, she wasn't enough.]...Or: Zuko chases after his redemption. Mai suffers with the fallout.
Relationships: Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 95
Collections: Fall Maiko Week 2020





	home (overthrown)

**Author's Note:**

> Next Maiko Week fic! Now, I see this fic as being more adjacent to the prompt, which was 'redemption'. This fic is Mai-centric and the redemption discussed is meant to be Zuko's. This fic's basically discussing the consequences he accidentally causes with Mai's feelings as he earns his true redemption.
> 
> It was mostly written to this song: "Home" by Dabin & Essenger, especially the non-acoustic version, and that's where the title sort of comes from. If you like reading fic when listening to songs, this one captures the feeling of this fic (for me, at least!)
> 
> Find me on tumblr, if you want: [@drowning-in-cacophony](https://drowning-in-cacophony.tumblr.com/)

* * *

It starts like this.

One day, Azula’s set on capturing her uncle, the Avatar _and_ her brother. The next, Azula’s captured her uncle, the Avatar is dead and Zuko is now, apparently, back on their side.

She’s meant to be a way to control him, nothing more than an incentive to keep him firmly on Azula’s side, but nothing’s ever that simple. He stares at her one day. A few later, and she’s kissing him.

And she’s sure he doesn’t mean to cut her open, to draw out parts of her she thought were long dead, turned to stone by the weight of her mother’s tutting comments and her father’s absentminded reminders. But somehow they’re not, or they were and he’s breathed life back into them with his too-hot breath, fire into once icy veins. She doesn’t think he _should_ be able to, not really. The boy who is not quite the one she felt squirming feelings for once – he’d been firm in conviction, strong in his beliefs but still so faltering at the sight of his father’s affection directed only at his sister. He’s still that last one. Glaring at Azula and twitching with never-ending nerves when it comes to his father, but the first two are warped now.

He’s Zuko. He’s a stranger. Split in the middle, conflicting, and someone like that really, _really_ doesn’t have the right to interfere with _her_ splits. But he does, and maybe she lets him, and maybe she believes he’s not as split as she knows he is, because she’s memorised the shape of his mouth and the feeling of his hand in hers and the weight of his presence permeates every inch of her existence until-

He takes the heart he’d accidentally awoken, accidentally encouraged to _feel_ , and stabs a knife straight through it.

And she doesn’t understand. He’d gotten everything he wanted. His _redemption_ (even if a redemption offered by Azula is never without catches). His place at his father’s side (but Ozai’s fickle and already banished him once) and _her,_ and there’s nothing she can do to wrap her mind around that. He liked her. She _knows_ he liked her. He cut her open but she’s pretty sure she cut him too, because he let her touch him and hold him and he let her _feel_ about him, and he’s many things but he’s not cruel, and he wouldn’t have let her so close if he didn’t _feel_ too.

He’d gotten everything he wanted, but somehow it wasn’t enough.

(Somehow, _she_ wasn’t enough).

* * *

She intends to keep her calm, and then she hears him.

His familiar voice, his stupid tone. _I didn’t do anything wrong_ , and _you did,_ she wants to yell, _you tricked me and hurt me and for what, why would you_ leave? But she’s not going to yell, she’s not-

She’s been bubbling ever since her uncle wrote to her. ( _Her,_ and not Azula – she doesn’t know if Azula was meant to come, but Azula’s been reading her mail – but this is meant to be about _her)._ Lava, spilling from her cracks, and it all comes pouring down. She can’t stop it. She doesn’t _want_ to stop it.

Yet somehow, _somehow_ , he does it all over again.

He’s not split anymore, and it’s obvious at first sight. His eyes burn with a determination she’d seen last before his Agni Kai. His shoulders are set and there is no flinching in his words. He believes in what he’s saying without a doubt, and ever since he’d returned he’d been full of doubt, unsure and questioning and now he’s _not_.

He’s more like himself than he’s ever been in the weeks with her. Mai glares at his stupid face, at his well-reasoned arguments and convictions and then he locks her in a cell anyway but she’s never felt this alive, veins crackling like she thinks Azula’s lightning might feel, and he cut her open and made her feel and now he might _die_ but he’ll die thinking he’s doing something good and that might be more than _she_ can say.

He stares into her eyes and she’s shaking, drowning in rage and gold and she thinks he might be too, and he leaves her again anyway. For the ‘greater good’. For the _Fire Nation_. Siding with an enemy to save their country, apparently.

Maybe she’s a fool. Or maybe he’s just very, _very_ good at convincing her.

She takes what might be her last breath. Steel in her hand. Lighting in the air.

* * *

He left her because he didn’t want to drag her into this mess.

He’s fucked that up though, hasn’t he? She, Ty Lee. Victims of his honour.

* * *

And-

She thinks about him sometimes, in prison.

The clothes are scratchy and cheap, the beds hard and uncomfortable, and the ceilings are plain and boring, with nothing to anchor her eyes to as she spends her nights staring, sleep evading her like it’s ashamed of her. There’s no competition here, in a place where everything is boring. Her thoughts have her full attention. There’s no knife to play with, no Azula to watch out for, no Zuko to talk to. It’s just her and the boring silence, and her thoughts can rush in like the tide. Consuming and unavoidable.

She doesn’t _want_ to think about him. Nothing past the resolve that yes, she saved him, and yes, she’d probably do it again if it meant keeping him alive and happy. She doesn’t think she could ever regret doing what she’d done.

She doesn’t want to think about him, the conviction in his eyes and the fact that he’ll have no idea what’s happened to her now, other than the fact he knows what his sister is capable of.

But her other thoughts revolve around Azula – fingers pointed, crackling around her nails, a twisted enraged expression and the pure adrenaline that’d kicked through Mai’s own heart, the knowledge that this breath could be her _last_ – and Ty Lee, brave and determined but still so scared, acting nonetheless, getting dragged into this mess and now shipped off and separated from her now, and none of those thoughts sit well in her stomach. The first burns her throat with acid; the second makes her stomach squirm.

It’s Azula’s cruelty that put them in prison. It’s Mai’s decision that put Ty Lee in this situation. It’s Zuko’s fault she made that decision.

(It’s her fault for falling in love with a boy who puts his ideals above her, and her fault for even now admiring that in him).

So her thoughts turn to him. Him, the traitor. Him, the one she turned traitor for.

And now, apparently, the only safe haven for her thoughts.

A quiet evening they’d spent trying to replicate the picnic Azula had interrupted. Mai had picked the location this time, choosing something further, more remote, and maybe she’d even implied to Ty Lee that Azula should be kept entertained all evening. He’d been tense but eventually unwound and his head had dipped onto her shoulder, and she’d slipped her arm through his as he’d sounded almost sleepy when he’d told her some story about travelling on his old ship. It hadn’t made much sense, whether that be from the incoherent nature of a timeline, or the stuttering holes from the omission of General Iroh’s presence, but Mai had liked hearing it. Or maybe it’d just been about hearing his voice, all meandering and raspy.

The soft look in his eyes when he’d fed her a bite of a fruit tart, and the gentle way he’d kissed the crumbs off her lips afterwards. She’d blushed so hard when he’d done that. He’d been red too, by the end of it, but then she’d smiled and he’d smiled too, something small and bright and precious.

The way his face felt, cradled carefully in her hands, and how he’d gazed her like she was the sun and he’d want to bask in her forever.

After their argument and reconciliation on the beach. He’d been out, sitting on the sand. Staring sightlessly at the waves. She’d joined him. The salt trapped between their lips, and her hand, braced against the sand. The rawness of her edges, her throat still hurting from her outburst, and his clothes smelling like smoke and ash.

The one sparring session she’d managed to cajole him into. His swords against her knives, and she’d pinned him to a tree in the end – after, admittedly, a very good attempt of beating her – and then she’d leant in and kissed him anyway as some sort of reward, and he’d blushed like the fucking sun itself, and she had stupidly thought that she could get _used_ _to it._

And how his hands would sometimes shake slightly, nervous when holding her hand, like she was something fragile until she shot him a look. She’s not glass and he’d do well not to treat her like it, and she’d thought he’d understood that and he’d left her anyway.

She wonders if it was worth it. A part of her wants to be bitter. _Selfish_. Somehow, he managed to take her heart – stealing it right out of her carefully patrolled walls – and somehow, he’s still got it. She doesn’t want leaving her to be worth it, not after what he’s done to her heart. Not after what he’s done to _her_.

But she knows Zuko. She _knows_ him, even if she didn’t predict him leaving her, even if he thought she’d be better off with a letter. She knows if he’s done all this, he thinks it’s worth it. The Fire Nation is worth it. Her feelings don’t matter. He’s always been about honour and justice; it’d been that behaviour that’d taken him from her the first time.

Maybe this is her comeuppance. She cracked her façade; she dared to have _feelings_. She helped tear down a city’s walls. Her family governed and re-named another. And when he’d told her all about the Fire Nation’s atrocities and why he _had_ to leave to redeem his country – she’s still not too sure she understands. But if he’s right, under all the dramatic statements and confusing contradictions with all they’ve ever been taught then-

She’s lost her freedom for the sins he told her about and the blind faith she’d somehow still had in him; she’s lost Ty Lee and _Zuko_ too. Zuko, Zuko, fucking Zuko.

She sighs in the quiet of her cell and rolls over, so she’s facing the wall. Her fingers twitch to where usually her stiletto holsters would sit, but her wrists are empty, empty, _empty_.

* * *

She dreams, because sleep can’t avoid her forever. Shame’s good, but so is torture.

So she dreams of him, the bastard, and nothing changes even when she’s making this shit up.

 _You broke my heart,_ she tells him and he just gazes back at her with soulful eyes that tell her nothing at all, and she wants to yell at him and blame him and turn away and in the end-

* * *

She sits out in the yard and squints up at the sun. Her hands feel empty and useless; her eyes feel like they’ll never stop being alert. She wonders if this is how that Kyoshi Warrior woman felt, stuck out here. But she, at least, could daydream about her boyfriend rescuing her and Mai knows she’s got no such luck. It’d be a waste, and Zuko’s not _that_ much of an idiot.

So, instead, she finds time to wonder what he’s doing with the Avatar. It’s better than worrying whether Ty Lee can see the sun where she is.

(Ty Lee, who betrayed Azula for _her_. Ty Lee, in prison, all because Zuko couldn’t stop being a good person and Mai couldn’t stop herself from saving him).

No, it’s better to wonder about him.

She doesn’t know _where_ he might be, but he’s with the Avatar. Teaching him. Teaching him how to firebend; how to defeat his _father._

Mai’s watched him bend fire. When she was younger, and her knife skills were still a work in progress and Azula had banished her from their games, she’d watched his extra training sessions. Just him and his fire. She’d thought he looked _amazing_ , bending – even with the failures and the wrong steps, it’d been so much more captivating than Azula’s perfection.

She’d watched him when he returned too. This time with permission, and only a couple of times. He’d been shy; the shyness had started as coarse irritation and a genuine distrust in anyone _wanting_ to watch him, something that’d made her feel frustrated and sad all in the same breath, but he’d let her stay anyway. His fire had been brighter. Hotter. Wilder, and she could understand how he’d helped his sister under Ba Sing Se.

She doesn’t know how good he’ll be as a teacher. She knows he can get frustrated. She can’t imagine teaching the Avatar can be all rainbows and smiles. But then he’s been surprising her recently, hasn’t he? Maybe, now he’s returned to who he is, determined and honest and honourable, maybe now he’ll be good.

Maybe now he’s away from her and the Fire Nation and everything else, he’ll be able to be watched without his shoulders hunching up to his ears.

* * *

_I was the perfect prince, but I wasn’t me_.

He warned her without warning her.

She replays the memory over and over in her dreams. The cool of his armour under her hand. The conflicting pull of his eyebrow. The too-long gaze at his father’s portrait, and _it was obvious, you stupid idiot,_ and if she’d said something _then_ would it have changed, would he have _told her-_

* * *

The comet draws closer. Mai doesn’t find she cares much about it – she’s not a firebender. She won’t be able to feel the heat in her veins, she won’t be put on extra watch like the bending prisoners. It’s just a day for her. A day where the sky will burn orange.

_(Orange is such a horrible colour, and you’re so beautiful when you hate the world)._

It won’t be _just a day_ for Zuko, or Azula, or the rest of the Fire Nation. It’ll be _power_ to them, orange that could burn down the world. They’ll be some sort of plot. Zuko and his new friends will try and stop it. He’ll be enhanced by the comet. Azula will be stronger still. Azula is _always_ stronger-

She clenches her hands, nails digging into her palm, and places this thought in the pile along with ones about Ty Lee.

* * *

Fire scorches her dreams.

Fire scorches, and it’s already been proven that he’s not fireproof.

* * *

The comet passes. Mai doesn’t get to see the orange streaking the sky.

Her heart thumps and pounds until she feels sick, and she presses her forehead against the cool wall and wills herself not to think.

_Please don’t think-_

* * *

The door to her cell opens. Light pours in; then a shadow. Mai flicks her eyes over, effecting a bored expression even as her heart pulses against her rib cage: but it’s only her uncle.

He looks at her with shadowed eyes, pursed lips. Ever since the escape, he’d lost some of the cocky tilt to his mouth, and his face bears shadows it didn’t before. The escape left his reputation in tatters at least, and it’s had some bearing on him. She wonders how much more he lost when he chose to keep her here with him.

“What,” she says flatly when he doesn’t move to speak. “You’re interrupting.”

His eyes tighten at the edges. _Interrupting what_ , the creases seem to be saying. It’s not like Mai has things to do. She can stare at a ceiling. Think about Zuko. Try not to think about the comet. Feel for where her stilettos _should_ rest. If she had them, the ceiling would be peppered with embedded dents. Each one could be named after a new feeling, a new irritant. _That one for when he kissed me, that one for when he made me laugh, that one for when he broke my heart, that-_

He doesn’t lecture her, telling her this is his prison, that she’s a prisoner, that _interruptions_ can not truly be called that here. Instead, he steps back, his body sideways in the door frame, leaving enough room for a person to stroll out into the light. Mai’s expression stiffens; he holds her gaze for a moment longer.

“Get up, Mai,” he says. “You’re going.”

“Going?” Mai repeats. She sits up, slow and wary. Her eyes scan her uncle’s, but he’s a warden for a reason and his face gives nothing away.

“There’ll be clothes waiting for you on the airship, which will take you back to the capital.” He nods. “You shouldn’t make it wait around for you.”

“I don’t understand,” she says measuredly, eyes narrowed. An airship. The capital. She doubts Azula would send her _clothes_. She doubts her uncle would tell her like this, if it was Azula. But- what else is there?

“Your _boyfriend,”_ and how much derision, how much hatred, can be poured into one word (that technically doesn’t even _apply_ anymore, he dumped her in a _letter_ ), “is Fire Lord now. I assume he’d like to see you safe and out of prison?”

“Fire Lord?” Mai repeats. Something in her chest stutters. Her uncle grinds his teeth, glancing away.

“I don’t know much about it,” he tells her anyway. “Just that Fire Lord Ozai has been dealt with by the Avatar, Princess Azula is no longer a concern, and your _boyfriend,”_ that tone _again_ , “is the Fire Lord.”

Mai… blinks.

Her uncle crosses his arms impatiently.

 _Fire Lord Zuko_ , she thinks. It’s bizarre on her tongue.

* * *

After the coronation and in between all the celebrations, he finds her in the gardens.

The celebrations are claustrophobic. They wrap around her throat like hands, digging fingerprints in like bruises and she’s choking, choking. She thinks of the dark, of a bed that always hurts and all the thoughts too, and she steps out into the warm night. The light of the sun has faded; she breathes a little easier in the dark now anyway.

She wonders. Now she’s free of prison, is it all she’s ever going to think about?

He finds her leaning against one of the pillars overlooking one of the gardens. His footsteps are light but she’s attuned herself to his step by now. She hears him coming. Stays where she is, even if her skin’s not done prickling.

“It’s too loud in there,” she says calmly, measuredly. “I wanted a break.”

His footsteps stumble. Mai slips a hand up her sleeve and feels her stilettos, snug against her wrists. Right where they belong.

“Not from you,” she amends after the slightest pause, and his relieved exhale is audible even from steps away.

She turns, glancing over her shoulder at him. The golden five-point crown glistens in his hair and it’s such a foreign sight. He catches her looking; grimaces.

“You would not believe how heavy this thing is,” Zuko says. “I’d take it out, but I’m pretty sure I’d cause some sort of incident.”

“Can’t have that on your first official day of ruling, can you?” Despite herself, despite her mood, her lips are twitching up at the corners. It doesn’t help how he grins back, delighted at even the smallest twitch on her mouth.

He’s close to her now. An arm’s length away and there’s an ocean of something between them, the rolling feelings of unfinished business. He left her; she saved his life. What does one _say_ in these sort of situations? Earlier was the start, the moment of euphoria, and nothing can be that easy forever.

He watches her and she watches him and in the end she lifts up a hand and brushes at his shoulder, away from where the heavier bandages wrap around, hidden in his robes. He winces despite her care; she’s quick to retract her hand, not wanting to cause him any pain. But he’s just as quick to capture her hand before she can draw it away, lacing his fingers through with hers. She looks at their entwined hands for a moment, and does not pull away. When she glances up at his face, he’s smiling just a little.

“Katara says it’ll take a while to completely heal,” he answers her unspoken question. “But I’m not going to keel over and die anytime soon, so it’s fine.”

She frowns at his cavalier tone. She still doesn’t know exactly what happened. She knows it was in some fight against Azula; she knows the words _Agni Kai_ were mentioned. She supposes she can ask for clarification now, prize the story from his lips in the dark, when everything feels strange and a little less real, but maybe she’s not entirely ready yet.

He raises their hands to his mouth. Presses a kiss to the back of hers. She shivers, twitches through her veins.

“You can’t do anything like this ever again,” she tells him softly, eventually, staring somewhere near his jaw. “Never.”

_Because you ripped me open and made me feel and then tossed it all away and-_

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I won’t.”

His tone’s sincere enough. His fingers tighten against hers.

She’s been an accessory in all of this. His redemption towards the light, his restoration. Because what Azula offers is always conditional, and he’s always been made of honour. He’d left her behind and left her raw.

But he’s holding onto her now.

And he’s not letting her go.

* * *


End file.
